Technical Field
This Patent Document relates generally to conversion of analog information to digital form such as for processing and/or control, and more specifically to converting analog information to digital data communicated for example to a processor or controller, such as can be used in sensor systems in which sensed physical state or condition (such as temperature or pressure) is converted to digital form and communicated to a processor/controller.
Related Art
Analog to digital sensor systems can be based either on analog or digital sensors. In either case, an analog sensor senses analog information corresponding to a physical state or condition (such as for temperature or pressure).
Analog sensors transmit the sensed analog information for example to a processor/controller, which converts the analog information to digital form for processing (such as for controlling or logging). Digital sensors either integrate or couple to an analog sensor, and perform analog to digital conversion and data communication.
Digital sensors perform data communication according to various encoding/communication protocols. For example, the sensor information can be converted and communicated in the form of frequency, period, delay, pulse width or duty cycle information, which is measured at the receive end to recover the sensor information. Alternatively, sensor information can be digitally encoded for communication according to a digital communication protocol including a clock (either embedded or separate), which is decoded at the receive end (based on a recovered clock) to recover the sensor information. Two common communication protocols for communicating encoded digital sensor data are SPI and I2C.
While this Background information is presented in the context of sensor applications, this Patent Document is not limited to such applications, but is more generally directed to analog to digital conversion with data communication such as to a processor/controller.